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Teenage gunpoint raiders locked up
TWO boys who robbed a Marton off-licence at gunpoint have been locked up for two years.
The terrifying raid at the Corkscrew store on Hawes Side Lane saw the two masked youths, who cannot be named for legal reasons, burst into the shop brandishing a pistol and a 12in knife.
Owner Sunil Ghandi was pistol-whipped before he made it behind the counter, grabbed a baseball bat and chased the pair from the store.
He received head and hand wounds and required hospital treatment. Afterwards, he told The Gazette: "I will not let them beat me."
Preston Crown Court heard how the 16-year-old youths had earlier pleaded guilty to attempted robbery, possessing an imitation firearm and having an offensive weapon.
A third defendant, 18-year-old Steven Simms was handed an 18-month supervision order for assisting an offender in hiding the weapons.
Judge Maurice Green praised Mr Ghandi's courage in handling the situation on July 4.
He said: "Mr Ghandi grabbed hold of a baseball bat and confronted the two of you and you ran out of the shop. Because of his courage and bravery you did not succeed in this attempt to rob him."
The court heard how Mr Ghandi was bending down by a fridge at the front door when the two youths burst in wearing balaclavas.
Brett Gerrity, prosecuting, told how one of the youths shouted "hit him, hit him" and the other pistol-whipped him with the butt of the imitation gun. Simms later went to his mother's home in Branstree Road, Mereside, in an agitated state and asked to leave a rucksack there. He later went back and hid the weapons beneath the floorboards.
Fraser Livesey, defending one of the youths, said it had been a "foolhardy plan" concocted while his client was sleeping rough.
Janet Ironfield, for the other, said her client had not wielded the knife with intent to wound.
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Monday 13 February 2012
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